R-Cade Glasgow Grand Opening Interview with Androo the owner and video game fanatic. January 20th rolled around, and that could mean only one thing – the grand opening of R-Cade Glasgow! We have been eagerly anticipating this, and the team of Neil, Holly and Filip gingerly made it down the icy city streets to this charming place.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by a warm, friendly atmosphere and an even nicer couple who run R-Cade Glasgow. A long chat about gaming and pop culture emerged and was eventually centred around Filip asking Androo some questions about the new establishment.

Filip: What made you want to open R-Cade Glasgow?

Androo: R-Cade Glasgow is, it’s my passion for gaming that made it come to life. I’ve been a hardcore gamer, I’d say since I was five years old. From the first time I got a NES, a NES Controller [playing] Mario and Donkey Kong. So Retro gaming has always been there. I’ve done other things and worked in other places but at the end of the day, I wanted to start my own business with retro gaming and things.

F: So, why the mix of retro gaming and ramen?

A: Well, retro gaming as I said is a big passion of mine. The ramen side of things, I had looked at all the other fast food places Glasgow; you’ve got your burger places, American style, Indian. You’ve got all that kinda stuff but no one was doing fast instant ramen noodles that you could get really quickly, and it’s something I eat all the time and have done for years.

Probably not good for me, it just felt like the right thing for me to represent. And it went really well because I’ve got a huge passion for Japan and Japanese culture it’s a big massive part of my life so the instant ramen from Japanese companies like Nissin were just perfect for opening an arcade place.

On top of that, the noodle side of things, opening a gaming arcade won’t self-sustain in terms of financial backing so you need something else to make the money to keep the place open which why the food industry really speaks for that.

F: Ok, what would you say is really unique about R-Cade Glasgow?

A: For us it’s the feeling and the look, it’s trying to be true to retro gaming with the original consoles and original games, nothing emulated nothing done in the traditional arcade way but trying to keep everything as pure as possible and again with the Japanese theme trying to give something unique that no ones really seen from the east and trying to create that in Glasgow.

F: You were saying before in terms of the recycling…

A: Yea, with the originality of the consoles it’s all about trying to save as many consoles as possible by upcycling them here at R-Cade Glasgow and using technology from the past that’s maybe neglected now and bringing it back and refurbishing it and getting it working again so we’re reliving memories from the past, which number 1 is fun and number 2 is good for the environment, so much landfill waste with old style television everyone is throwing away, there are so many televisions still working and still good quality that are just thrown away all the time every single day. So for us, a big part of R-Cade Glasgow was to try reducing that.

F: Ok, Cool. So are you planning to host events at R-Cade Glasgow as you go along?

A: Yea, so R-Cade Glasgow will do traditional gaming events, we’ll do tournaments geared towards fighting games and party games; Guitar Hero or Sing Star, that kinda stuff so we’ll have theme nights for those.

We’ll try to do more retro theme nights as well, so pulling in older games maybe do like high school battle or speed runs that kinda stuff, try to do a new twist on the whole gaming event that I don’t really see in Glasgow at least.

We’re talking about we wanna do more events toward retro gaming consoles in trying to fix them up, refurbish them and get them up and running again so they’re not just sitting in a cupboard doing nothing they’re actually being used and being loved.

Because there’s a finite amount of retro consoles out there and if you leave them to waste we’re gonna lose them all eventually. And also [I] want to teach transferable skills onto people in terms of soldering, electronics and that sort of stuff. And revive that lost art of fixing things your self instead of just throwing it away and buying something brand new.

F: What’s the vision you have going forward with R-Cade Glasgow?

A: The future of R-Cade, so I’m hopefully going to use this as a stepping stone to bigger and better things, try and build a big community of retro gamers, people who are interested in trying to save old consoles and old technologies.

And on top of that, I want to expand. I want to build a bigger R-Cade Glasgow already! This is already too small for me. And I want to build so many more machines. So, eventually bigger premises, possibly moving into other cities, I grew up in the east in Edinburgh so maybe opening up a second venue in Edinburgh one day and maybe even moving north, Aberdeen. We’re gonna take over Scotland with retro gaming. That’s the plan.

What Happens In Gaming is looking forward to working with, and attending events hosted by R-Cade Glasgow. Did someone say Guitar Hero band night?? Count us in!